Following the president's tweet, questions are being asked: "Should President Trump impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum?" And, "How will a tariff affect our economy and metal prices?"

If the allegations of foreign government subsidies to their steel and aluminum industries are true, then this is something that is detrimental to our domestic industries. The same could be said in cases of dumping (predatory pricing) where a product is sold cheaper than its production cost in an effort to gain market share by driving out competitors. This practice is illegal in the United States.

Barring these two scenarios, free market economics dictates that goods should always be produced by the lowest cost producer and sold into the highest market. Unless there is cheating going on to artificially lower costs, or there is a tariff on our goods sold into a foreign country, tariffs are probably not going to be helpful.

China was once a destination for low grade scrap where cheap labor was used to extract the valuable fractions. This is increasingly no longer true.

Some time ago, China instituted its “Green Fence” policy. They started to inspect imported scrap loads with greater frequency and intensity, looking for loads that might be garbage disguised as scrap. They were looking for loads of mixed plastics and scrap metal with a lot of tramp material. Rejected loads were sent back to their origin at the shipper’s expense. A lot of US-based brokers who exported to China simply stopped buying.

The scrap industry has long been responsible for helping to keep the environment clean. Our industry has turned unwanted vehicles, appliances, ships, demolition debris, old machinery, and more from cast offs into commodities.

What would have been an eyesore littering the environment has been turned into raw material for new products. In some years, our industry has contributed as much as 10% to our gross domestic product through scrap exports. We’ve added countless high-paying jobs to the economy and saved an abundance of natural resources through energy savings and providing a viable alternative to mining. It takes 70% less energy to make metal from metal than it does to make it from ore. One ton of scrap steel makes one ton of new steel. The same ton of steel would require digging up forty tons of earth that contains iron ore.

Always Buying Scrap donated a car to the Duke Zeta Tau Alpha sorority to help them raise money for breast cancer awareness during their 2016 Smash Bash. As can be seen, a great deal of fun was had by all and it helped the sorority raise cash for a good cause.